As an individual, you may not consider the impact that social media can have as you may just utilize it as a way to keep in touch with friends and family. However, social media has power. As consumers, social media has the power to influence everything we do, eat and buy.
This makes social media an impactful marketing tool, and given the scope and reach that social media platforms have, businesses can reach demographics they never dreamed possible previously.
What’s more, social networking sites allow companies to have a fluid relationship with communication. Through social networking, companies can have open communication with customers and receive nearly instantaneous feedback directly from these customers. Moreover, utilizing social media for marketing can help your business—especially if you’re small and growing—save money.
These reasons alone should be enough motivation to thoughtfully utilize social media for your business. Once you’ve decided to utilize social networks, you may need some guidance for where to go next.
Choose a platform
There are numerous platforms your business can choose from; you’re probably already familiar with the major ones. The platform you choose depends on who you want to reach and how you want to deliver the message. You’ll need to start by understanding your target audience and then you’ll be able to choose which platform will work best for you.
Branding
As you build your business, you will also build your brand and how it looks. If you choose to put your business across social networking sites, you should ensure that your brand is consistent across all platforms. However, you should remember that this doesn’t mean blindly copying it for each platform.
Different social networking platforms have different aesthetics; therefore, your look should be the same, but you should have unique content for each platform.
The human factor and consumer relationships
Our society has evolved to the point where consumers no longer accept the businesses they buy from to be faceless corporations. They expect some level of interaction and a more personal touch. Feel free to incorporate humor, snippets of your working life and consumer interaction.
In addition to allowing your business to feel human, you should also strive to build and cultivate relationships with your customers. This is how you’ll both attract and retain your clientele. You have numerous options for how to engage your customers, including:
- Offering discounts
- Providing entertaining and useful content
- Scheduling events
- Making announcements to your audience
- Utilizing influencers and/or celebrities
Feedback is another important aspect of fostering a relationship between your business and your customers. You’ll want to have an established strategy for handling both positive and negative feedback. Also, you’ll want to ensure that anything you or your designated social media posters say can (and often will) be saved and shared.
You should also make sure to encourage and then reward the positive feedback you receive. This is because you’ll want to make sure that those who take the time to leave you feedback feel appreciated so that they will continue to do business with you and encourage those they know to do the same.
This is just a taste of the ways you can use social media to help improve and grow your business.